Woman goes to buy iPhones from Apple store, gets tasered by cop

An Apple store in Nashua, NH is at the center of a somewhat disturbing story surrounding the tasering of a Chinese woman who wouldn’t leave the store when asked.

The woman, 44-year-old Chinese national and Newton, Mass. resident Xiaojie Li, reportedly turned up at the store last Friday to buy two iPhones. After making the purchase, Li, who says she can’t speak English, then tried to buy several more iPhones but was refused by Apple store staff, who told her a two-per-customer limit was in place.

Unhappy with this, Li started videoing other customers she claimed were being allowed to buy more than two units. Hardly surprisingly, staff told her to leave.

Over the weekend, a determined Li apparently ordered two more iPhones online, returning to the same store on Monday to collect them. Staff recognized her and refused to give her the items, and once again ordered her to leave.

When she refused, staff called the cops. Despite an officer asking her to leave, Li stayed inside the store. At this point an attempt at arrest was made but Li reportedly resisted for 15 minutes.

Taser

In a video (below) uploaded to YouTube showing part of the incident, you can see – and certainly hear – Li screaming as she’s tasered by a cop.

Having been issued with a stay-away order by the Apple store, Li was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest.

“If she left the store when she was told to leave the store, it would’ve been done at that,” Nashua police captain Bruce Hansen told WCVB TV. “She was told she was under arrest after repeatedly being told to leave the store. She didn’t submit to the arrest. The officer used the taser on her to get her to submit to the arrest.”

Resellers

With her daughter acting as interpreter, Li said she was buying the phones for relatives back in China, but according to Nashua police chief John Seusing, the store has been having trouble with visitors buying multiple devices to sell at inflated prices overseas.

Li, who was carrying $16,000 in cash when she was arrested, said through her daughter that she was trying to buy the handsets for relatives back in her home country.

Li’s boyfriend, John Hugo, said he was outraged by what had happened. “You go into a store, and you end up getting brutalized by the police,” he told WCVB TV, adding that even if she was a reseller, “does it rise to the level of getting a beating from police?”